Ike Schwartz thought he could return to his hometown and ditch the demons that pursue him. More than anything, he wanted to blot out the pain and anger that came when his wife of less than a month was gunned down in a CIA foul-up. So he buried himself as sheriff in rural Picketsville, Virginia, a community indistinguishable from any of the hundreds of small towns that hang like beads on Interstate 81 running from Pennsylvania down to Georgia.

Aside from its Civil War history, Picketsville’s only real claim to fame is Callend College, a private women’s school located just within its corporate limits. The college is notable, in turn, for housing one half of the billion dollar Dillon art collection, carefully secured in an underground bunker originally built in the late 1950s as a super bomb shelter.

It’s bad news for both Dr. Ruth Harris, the newly hired president of the college, and for a shadowy group whose services have been contracted by Middle Eastern fanatics—The New Jihad—when the collection is scheduled to be removed to New York. The plan is to steal the half billion dollars worth of fine art and statuary, and ransom it back for millions.

With the closure of the facility imminent, the operation must be moved forward, which, in turn, creates unanticipated risks and problems. And everyone dismisses Ike Schwartz as a stereotypical rural sheriff. He is, however, a man with uncommon skills, a tough hide, and a notable past—all of which make an arresting first novel.

A young woman on holiday on Mykonos, the most famous of Greece’s Aegean Cycladic islands, simply disappears off the face of the earth. And no one notices.

When politically incorrect, hot-shot detective Andreas Kaldis is promoted out of Athens to serve as police chief for Greece’s island paradise of Mykonos, he’s certain his homicide days are over. Murders don’t happen in tourist heaven; at least that’s what he’s thinking as he stares at the remains of a young woman found ritually bound and buried on a pile of human bones inside a remote mountain church.

Teamed with the canny, nearly-retired local homicide chief, Andreas tries to find the killer before the media can destroy the island’s fabled reputation with a barrage of world-wide attention on a mystery that’s haunted Mykonos undetected for decades.

Just when it seems things can’t get any worse, another young woman disappears and political niceties no longer matter. With the investigation now a rescue operation, Andreas finds himself plunging into ancient myths and forgotten island places, racing against a killer intent on claiming a new victim who is herself determined to outstep him.

Bullet Hole: An Alan Saxton Mystery #1 by Keith Miles is $.99 at Apple, Amazon, and B&N.

The Ragtime Kid: A Ragtime Mystery #1 by Larry Karp is $.99 at Amazon and B&N.

Free now at Amazon.

Ragtime Kid free version is from Read How You Want. [affiliate link removed - moderator]

Shadows in the Night: An Aurelia Marcella Roman Mystery #1 (formerly Get Out or Die) by Jane Finnis is $.99 at Apple, B&N, and Amazon.

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Roman Britain in 91 AD is a troublesome part of the mighty Empire ruled by Domitian Caesar. Tension is especially high in the north, where Aurelia Marcella, a young innkeeper from Italy, runs the Oak Tree Mansio on the road to York. A string of savage murders disrupts her peaceful life, and she and her Roman friends find themselves under attack from a secret native war-band, the Shadow-men, whose aim is to expel all Romans out. A traveler, Quintus, is nearly killed close to the inn. Soon he and Aurelia team up to track down the rebel warriors and identify their mysterious masked leader, the Shadow of Death. Reread the beginning of the Aurelia Marcella Mystery series starting with this, the first book (previously Get Out or Die).

The Commission: A Sam Kincaid Mystery #1 by Michael Norman is $.99 at Amazon and B&N.

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Levi Vogue, Chairman of the powerful Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, is gunned down in the driveway of his home as he returns from a late evening tryst with Sue Ann Winkler, an exotic dancer employed in a Salt Lake City strip club. Sam Kincaid, Chief of the Special Investigations Branch (SIB) of the Utah Department of Corrections, is assigned to help Salt Lake City Police Department homicide detective Lt. Kate McConnell solve Vogue’s murder. The investigation soon leads Kincaid and McConnell into the seedy world of prostitution and strip clubs. Ultimately, the investigation focuses on Charles (Slick) Watts, a violent ex-convict with a long criminal history and a score to settle with Levi Vogue. But before Watts can be apprehended, his body is discovered at an abandoned military base in Wendover, Nevada. When the medical examiner concludes that Watt’s death was a homicide elaborately staged to look like a suicide, Kincaid and McConnell are forced to turn their attention to a complex conspiracy behind the murders. Ultimately, the investigation leads Kincaid and McConnell inside the Utah state prison to a small group of corrupt prison employees known as the Commission. As the police close in, Commission members turn, first on each other, and then on Kincaid.

Publishers Weekly voted The Commission one of the “Best 150 Books of 2007″. The Commission was also nominated for the Salt Lake City Library Readers Choice Award.

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Soon after an ancient talisman is smuggled out of Hong Kong, a container ship filled with Chinese refugees runs aground on Alcatraz, the crew murdered.

The Chinese Triads suspect one of their own, a female assassin named Sally known to have a complex relationship with a San Francisco detective named Cape Weathers. But when Sally goes missing, Cape becomes the focus of the Triads’ attention, and soon the police and FBI have him on their radar. Cape quickly realizes he’s screwed if he doesn’t find out what really happened on board the ship.

He soon seeks the aid of two neurotic cops, a drug lord, an autistic computer genius, a mayoral candidate, and a reporter with sentient hair.

From there, it all goes to Hell.

— IMBA (Independent Mystery Booksellers Association) Killer Book of the Month, 2008 Bronze Medal Winner of the IPPY Award, and Finalist for the Macavity Award for Best First Novel.

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Set amidst the political turbulence and social unrest of contemporary Mexico City, An Easy Thing introduces English-speaking readers to Taibo’s human and world-weary protagonist, independent detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne. In this debut outing, our hero, who, incidentally, possesses an insatiable appetite for Coca Cola and cigarettes, tackles three cases simultaneously: a killing in a corrupt factory; the deadly threats against a former porn starlet’s teenage daughter; and, strangely, the search for Emiliano Zapata, folk hero and leader of the Mexican Revolution, rumored to be alive and hiding out in a cave outside Mexico City.

Combining black comedy, social history and a touch of surrealism, Paco Taibo’s wonderfully idiosyncratic detective novels are admired the world over and are particularly popular in Europe and in the Spanish-speaking world.

Soho Crime is an imprint of publisher Soho Press, who specializes in this type of books. They were bought out by Random House but so far still allowed to function pretty much independently. Kobo has a lot of them and coupons can be used.

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Soho Crime, Soho Press’s renowned literary international crime imprint, was founded in 1991 with the mandate of bringing culturally rich and atmospheric crime fiction set around the world to English language readers. Almost all of our books are installments in continuing series set in particular countries and/or cultures.